


the burial was premature

by recrudescence



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/F, Femslash, Semi-Public Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2014-02-16
Packaged: 2018-01-12 18:03:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1194462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recrudescence/pseuds/recrudescence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Macau, Eve is the one to chat up Séverine instead of Bond.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the burial was premature

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Porn Battle XV. Prompt: quiet.

Eve learns to work the system early on.

“I’m coming over,” Bond warns, urgent in her ear. “She has three bodyguards. Overkill, in a word.”

Eve smiles. “Let me have a go. This is one field exam I haven’t passed yet.”

\---

The woman is a column of black, an exiled monarch holding court at the casino bar.

“Are you with him?” she asks, inclining her head towards Bond and exhaling a thin stream of smoke.

Eve’s fingers mold around the cool curve of her glass, a heavy-bottomed tumbler waiting to be weaponized at the slightest hint of hostility from any of the sharp-suited watchdogs on the periphery. “Pardon?”

She laughs, head cocked, white teeth and lacquered nails agleam in the fluorescents. “You keep touching your ear. It looks like you’re talking with a ghost. Women don’t come to places like this just to sit alone and talk to themselves.”

Whiskey scorches down Eve’s throat along with her reservations. “Suppose I am. Shall I tell you more?”

\---

Bond is hissing intel in her ear, information about assassinations and tattooed wrists and cleverly concealed thigh holsters.

Eve is ready to rip out her earpiece. She’s new, not incompetent. Maybe Bond is deliberately being obnoxious to see if she loses her cool.

There are lips against her other ear, the unencumbered one. This woman, with her sharp name and smoky voice, leans in like a schoolgirl sharing a secret. “I believe we have a common interest here, don’t we?”

“My colleague tells me the two of you already know each other,” Eve says mildly.

“Not exactly. I’ve seen him a time or two. You might say we had a mutual acquaintance.”

“Oh, yes, Patrice,” says Eve, and spills half her drink in Séverine's lap.

\---

It turns out giving Séverine's security the slip is as easy as an aghast _my god, I’m so sorry, we’ve got to see to this immediately_ and an appalling waste of Johnnie Walker Blue.

The instant they’re in the toilet, which is larger and more luxurious than her last flat, Eve jimmies the deadbolt on the door and turns on all the taps in case they’re under surveillance even here.

“He killed Patrice.” Séverine's whisper merges with the rush of water. In the mirror, her reflection is chalk-white and wavery. “Tell me, will he kill again?”

Bond, who misses nothing, is chuckling in her ear. “Someone usually dies,” he says dryly, and Eve nearly misses it because Séverine is unfastening her dress.

“Killing isn’t generally a problem, no,” she answers. If she’s staring, it’s only because keeping an eye on the target is one of the fundamental tenets of espionage. “You don’t--what are you doing?”

“Negotiating,” Bond and Séverine say at the same time, and Eve thinks very seriously of stalking into the nearest stall and flushing her earpiece away.

Séverine drapes her dress over the counter and lets cold water spill over the stain, standing there in nothing but murderously high heels and the most elegant thigh holster Eve has ever seen. “Now. Can you promise me?”

“We really don’t go in for this sort of thing,” Eve hedges. “Think of this as a pro bono job.”

And Séverine steps forward, each stiletto tap against the tile floor resonating like a gunshot. Her mouth is wry red slice of heat against Eve’s cheek. “Nothing is ever pro bono.”

\---

The Beretta stays on and the mark on Séverine’s wrist stands out sharp and angry, even through the lipsticked efforts of Eve’s mouth.

“This isn’t a negotiation,” Eve says fiercely. She isn’t going to be like Bond, fucking her way through adversity. “Or an obligation.”

“Whatever you think it is, I need you to finish it.” Séverine's thighs are trembling, but her voice is steady and her fingers curl and press so deftly Eve has to grip the lip of the sink to keep from toppling out of her heels. “Promise me you’ll kill him.”

\---

She reconvenes with Bond later, after he manages to somehow emerge unscathed from an altercation involving, among other improbable things, a very hungry Komodo dragon.

“Her yacht is called the Chimera.” She almost feels bad about making him go straight from tangling with one beast to another, but 007 isn’t a legend in the business for nothing. “Can you be on it within an hour?”

He gives her the same droll, world-weary smirk she’s seen a thousand times by now. “Please. Of course I can.”

\---

“There was nothing we could have done,” 007 tells her. “It was over very quickly.”

Bullet to the head. Execution style, on some abandoned island with no one the wiser. Eve stares at the horizon and regrets following him onto the rooftop in the first place.

“You think you won’t get past this. But you will.”

He looks, sounds far too nonchalant. James Bond, MI6 legend and literal lady-killer.

Even to herself, Eve’s voice sounds as sharp as the straight razor she once used on him. “This is just another day at the grinding stone for you, isn’t it?”

For once, Bond doesn’t seem to have anything to say in return.

\---

Eve retires from the field on a Wednesday. There’s a new regime beginning and it needs a gatekeeper.


End file.
